Playing with the Spanish walk again

We had a lovely session lunging today and Moralejo was so chilled and went straight into a good rhythm in both walk and trot. A couple of short canters and some massage just below the poll really helped free him up. I'm very aware that 'playing' at liberty too much may not be helping keeping his alignment good but so far no worries. We finished with a play at the 'copy me' spanish walk; he really tried even if his concentration waned at times, I really must finish training the SW this time. I rode him up and down to the field today and it's a while since I sat on him bareback and.....I swear he's slimmer! Either that or all my stretching work is making me more flexible lol!!! It felt nice to sit on a warm back and feel his muscles.

quick dip...

....into the blog to say I've had a great session with Moo tonight; rode him and he was as sweet as anything. Lots of bending and stretching; real chilled man. I love days like today; perfect weather, mowed the lawns, levelled the school, topped the paddock and played pones **sigh** and all the better 'cos OH was indoors working on our fitted wardrobe! Result.

Girls afternoon

Yesterday we (Lydia, Di, Bev and I) went to the Blazing Saddles boot sale. Not the most exciting event but I got a brand new halter for a fiver and a Lucy rees book for three. We ate scrummy 'chewy' biscuits with coffee and then headed home so that the kids could play on the trampoline, hehehe. I haven't downloaded the vid of Bev bouncing but I guess I could, more hehehe.

I really do know nowt

I'm struggling.

Not in any physical sense but with finding the words to express my thoughts. Nothing new then!
I've tried for two evenings to type something that makes sense, here goes with third time lucky.

I feel almost doomed to a life of going backwards with my equestrianism! Not backwards in the sense of 'backing up' but backwards in the very real sense of diminishing skill!!
It started years ago and seems to show no signs of arresting or even taking a break. IT IS TRUE, paradoxically, the more you learn the less you know. Each box I open reveals at least a dozen more boxes that I will have to open and each of these will hold their own dozen mysteries to be revealed. Exponential growth charts aside, this will mean more boxes to open than I have years to live.
I'm not sad about this. In fact it makes me weirdly content to know that my work with horses will never be done. Searching is what gets me moving, motivates me. Discoveries make it all worth while.

I've been searching for Moo since we started work over a year ago. Of course the years before that I didn't know I hadn't found him. The last few weeks I've found more and more of the boy and in the main by doing very little...less really is more then.

Walking up the hill to the yard with him a week or so ago I realised what a joy he is to be with. He's light in my hand and takes note of all  I ask, he never rushes, never stops and rarely has even a tiny spook. Half way up the hill I had the urge to unhook him and just 'see', so I did. Well he just stopped in his tracks then turned round and went back about a meter to find some juicy grass and got his head down and tucked in, LOL. Now given I devote a lot of hours in the day to thinking, you can imagine that this really got me thinking. I won't bore you with the process (thank god they say) but since then I've gone right back to some basic liberty stuff with him.
I did a little liberty work with Fidge and it's almost all I've done with Chapsi so why haven't I done any with Moo? Well it's really very simple! Every time I've ever unclipped him in the school he's gone off to roll, bucked and played but never shown any real interest in coming to work with me (the boy has sense!!) we have done some liberty but it just didn't really work...in-hand yes and even the single rein driving thing he was brilliant at but given the choice he obviously rather wander off without me. Then recently a clicker training lady on EE said I could clicker train Chapsi to have more concentration when he got tense and so I've been playing with this. Finally the penny drops and I'm having some really good fun with Moo doing some basic liberty work.

Phew, well at least I got started tonight, I think it's going to be a very long process because I've come to realise that maybe this is where I should have started all along.

spring?

It finally arrived.....................

...........not a new car.............nor a new horse..............but........................the longest period of sustained dry weather since the start of winter. It has been the most glorious week of weather, cold mornings but sunny days and today it crept up to 16 degrees, oh YES.

So the garden is dug, the greenhouse is glazed and the boys have been enjoying long days in the field. Chapsi is still being a bit of a mare with the pony but there are no fisty cuffs and Moo seems to have the measure of the situation. I've been playing with the liberty work with both boys and have had a real 'breakthrough' in my head this week, I'll find the words later.

hard graft

But sadly not of the horse kind. Being stuck in another cold spell, where it struggles to get into the positives even after lunch, has made working the boys somewhat unenticing. Coupled with the need to get them turned out together which is now  achieved. Then  finally down to the decent grass today ;boy did they have smiles on their faces :-) so it's been a productive week but not in terms of working.

Lots of spook busting for Chapsi as we have had deliveries of aggragates for garden paths and greenhouse footings. He makes me smile as he first backs off and then races to the piles of stone to 'touch' when asked; he's still guarding the pone but not in any way nasty to Moo, who being a hungry horse just carries on grazing in his nonchalant way. They're out from dawn to dusk so no big worries that they haven't worked this week yet!

Ah yes, garden! Well we finally prepared the back of the stables for grass sowing and have dug over a good bit of garden for veggies, the greenhouse will, hopefully, get it's glass back soon and will be standing on a hard surface ready for get ripe quicker toms, yum, can't wait for summer.

So my back aches from digging and weeding but it all looks very tidy, just need Christophe to come (only six months late so far) to finish the hardstanding outside the stables and we'll be done. Now I have to wade through the hundreds (well it seems like it) of forms for the planning permission for the shelter in the bottom fields...this will give me the choice to have 24/7 turnout next winter. Just waiting to get the price for erecting the shelter and then I'll fill in the blasted forms, better go rest my eyes then!!

Let's do it

So we did...




...finally turn the boys out together. I'm so happy that things went pretty well, let's hope the happiness continues. As you will see from the short vid of appalling quality, it was all about pony possession.

I'm in the mood for dancing

Ah but probably NOT to the Nolan Sisters, LOL.

Sunshine all day for the second day this week. No horse stuff as they all stayed out all day, yay, and we had a chainsaw gardening day. Oh soooo satisfying, didn't make up for not working the boys but Moo rode well yesterday so I'm still in a dancing mood from that.
Happy dancing all, in other words hope you too have a day of sunshine this week.

back on me box

OK I'm not really supposed to be soap boxing on here but I so hate the work in this video that I want as many folks to see it as possible...and I shall post it on as many forums as I can.

This is the well known Linda Parelli doing something to gain the horses trust and attention...ha bloody ha woman. Just look at the anger in her body towards the end. Mrs Parelli and her husband make a stack from the so called Natural Horsemanship brigade and to me if this is a sample of their work then I'd like to use Parelli training on the Parellis. It makes me feel quite sick for the poor horse.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80925308/